Looking for Viking ancestry

Experts will over the next six months DNA test a group of Norwegians to see if there are any among them who are distant relations of Vikings who settled in Northern England.

A British group of scientists led by Professor of genetics Mark Jobling at the University of Leicester, will be testing volounteers from Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim, Lillehammer, Hamar and Kinsarvik in Hardanger, to see if there is Viking blood flowing in their veins.

Researchers from Norway, Britain, Iceland and Hungary met in Stavanger this weekend to work out the guidelines for the tests.

The project is a continuation of a DNA test carried out by Professor Stephen Harding from Nottingham, on 150 persons from Wirral, near Liverpool.

- We found that half of them had Norwegian ancestry. We will now try to see if the same is true in other regions in Northern England, Harding says.